Sour grapes are in season in Tokyo as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s predecessor steps up and slams the incumbent’s tax plans. However, beneath the bad feelings and twinge of regret, Yoshihiko Noda makes a very timely point when he accuses Abe of buying into ...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe risks triggering market turmoil should he fail to raise the consumption tax to 10 percent next year, his immediate predecessor warned. The government needs to ride out the economic fallout from the first tax increase in April and then lift ...

Former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Monday in Hong Kong that the economic stimulus package launched by his successor, Shinzo Abe, isn’t strong enough and that he hopes a trans-Pacific trade deal can be reached soon. Addressing hundreds as a keynote speaker at the ...

The government under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi studied the idea of putting the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea under state control, before three were nationalized in September last year, Yoshihiko Noda, another former prime minister, said Wednesday. “During the time of ...

Former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Tuesday criticized current leader Shinzo Abe’s latest economic stimulus program as “pork.” “I cannot help feeling that it is pork-barrel spending,” Noda, a supreme adviser of the Democratic Party of Japan, said in a speech in Washington, referring ...

The Lower House on Thursday formally approved the appointment of five experts who have been serving as the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s commissioners since September. Following the endorsement, the Upper House is also expected to approve the appointments of NRA Chairman Shunichi Tanaka and four ...